Category Archives: CANADA 150 YEARS

I’m happy to announce three shows, in three different places, in the next three weeks. Maybe some will be convenient for you to come and attend, or to alert local friends , to come and have a good time
1. DUNDAS, Ontario, will mark the re-opening of its fine new Library, at 18 Ogilvie Street ON SATURDAY APRIL 28.
My “ACROSS CANADA BY STORY” show will start there at 1.00 p.m., complete with bursts of music, and interesting coast to coast travels. And more than a few fine author stories.
2. QUEBEC CITY, Quebec, will feature my newest show, which is also based around the superb author sketches by Anthony Jenkins. That show is “GREAT SCOTS: Canadian Fiction Writers with Links to Scotland,. It will run at THE MORRIN CENTRE, on the Chaussee des Ecossais (of course) ON TUESDAY MAY 8 AT 8.00 pm. This show has met with success in Guelph and in Montreal, so we’re looking forward to our third return visit to the fine Festival crowd in Quebec.
3. TORONTO, Ontario. We’ll be giving a 65-minute version of the 150 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOW. This version, very similar to what we gave for the Lieutenant Governor, Elizabeth Dowdeswell, in her Chambers in May 2017.Although I cover the 150 years, this shorter version will concentrate on “CANADA’S GREATEST STORYTELLERS, FROM 1967 TO THE PRESENT”. Again, the music, iconic works of art, and the fine caricatures by Anthony Jenkins, make this a very lively show. You and your friends can see it at THE MILES NADAL CENTRE, at Bloor and Spadina, ON THURSDAY, MAY 17 at 1.30 pm.
We have other shows lined up for later, so Jane and I hope to see you at some point. But these are the the ones closest on the horizon.
A FINAL NOTE. these days I’m busy going to a recording studio, to read aloud a Audible Book Version of ACROSS CANADA BY STORY. I’m very pleased to do it, and am working hard. But I must confess that reading aloud the story of my last visit to Alistair MacLeod in hospital was too much for me. The recording engineer, the expert Bobby, says that he can patch it together for me.

If you, my very literate friends, have the smug sense that things are much better here than south of the border, in President Trump’s America, two stories surfaced today that you should see. And think about.
The first is a story in the December 7 Globe and Mail, by Jessica Leeder headed “Pulp non-fiction debate divides Nova Scotia town.”
The opening paragraph sums up the story : “Nova Scotia-born author Joan Baxter was to spend last Saturday signing copies of her new book about a local pulp mill’s fraught environmental history in Pictou County when Northern Pulp drafted a letter to Coles and its parent company, Indigo Books & Music Inc.”
” Calling the journalistic take insulting and offensive, the letter warned the bookstore in New Glasgow, N.S., there would be consequences for the event…”
As a result of these threatened consequences, a spokeswoman for Indigo said that “a number of events leading up to the signing in New Glasgow led us to cancel” the planned event. The cancellation came , ostensibly, from concerns that customers’ “joyful and safe experience” in the store might be compromised.

So, there you have it. Big, local company turns on a local bookstore, encourages its employees to make trouble ( although the company spokeswoman told us that “employees were not encouraged to take any physical action in protest”) and Coles/ Indigo backs down, and the book signing event is off.

An important freedom of speech issue, I would say.

As it happens, I know New Glasgow, and I know Pictou, and the looming Indonesian-owned pulp mill that dominates the town, in every sense. They are such bad corporate citizens that local resident Paul Sobey (who knows something about responsible corporate citizenship) has lent his name to protests against their environmental actions, all duly recounted in my friend Silver Donald Cameron’s film”Defenders of the Dawn”.

The reconstructed version of “The Hector”, the ship that brought Scottish immigrants to Nova Scotia, behind picturesque bagpipers, lies opposite the mill. Sadly, The Hector is closed to the public, still awaiting refurbishment. If any Nova Scotia friends has good news here, I would be glad to hear it.

THE SECOND IMPORTANT STORY is to be found on the front page of The Toronto Star today. Ainslie Cruickshank’s story is headed: “Music teacher sues board for defamation over song” The sub-heading reads: “School performance of folk song ‘Land of the Silver Birch’ leads to claims of racism and a lawsuit”.

The story opens: ” A Toronto music teacher is suing her principal, vice-principal and the public school board for defamation after the administrators sent an email to the school community apologizing that a well-known folk song — ”Land of the Silver Birch”–was performed at a school concert, calling it “inappropriate” and “racist”.”

The story is hard to summarise , so you might wish to read it for yourself. It’s especially hard for me to summarise , because THIS IS PERSONAL. In my latest show, taking us through Canadian Storytellers From 1867, decade by decade, I begin with a burst of popular Canadian music from the time. For the 1890s I proudly use “Land of the Silver Birch’, the lyrics written by Pauline Johnson in that decade, and sung by a more recent voice.

And here is what the geniuses behind that email “following concerns from parents about the song” said about Pauline Johnson’s poem. Emphasis mine :”WHILE ITS LYRICS ARE NOT OVERTLY RACIST…THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF THE SONG IS RACIST.”

How do I begin to deal with that? We can look at the song itself, familiar to generations of Canadian kids around campfires. They happily sang about “Blue lake and rocky shore”. Then many of them peered nervously into the darkness, hoping to catch a glimpse of a “mighty moose” wandering at will.

Great stuff. A fine, historical folksong. I hope the kids sang it well at the concert.

But “racist”? This brings us to Pauline Johnson, whom I’m delighted to include in my show. She was born in Brantford, and went to high school there with my selected storyteller, Sara Jeannette Duncan. Later, when Sara became The Globe’s first woman writer ( protected by the male nom-de-plume”Garth Grafton”) she published an interview with her interesting friend Pauline. And “interesting” is an under-statement. Her father was a hereditary Mohawk chief, while her mother was English. Pauline drew on both sides of her inheritance. In time , she made her living with a literary act on-stage. In the first half, before the Intermission, she dressed and performed as a Mohawk princess, with poems like “The Song My Paddle Sings”. In the second half she became her mother’s very modern daughter.

Audiences far and wide loved it, as she toured North America and Europe . When she retired to the West Coast, her book Legends of Vancouver, became a great success. In 1913 her funeral in Vancouver was the largest in the city’s history.

“The historical context of the song is racist.” Utter nonsense. I’m proud to have it in my show.

Read on.

5 books that say “Canada”

Robertson Davies captures small town life in Canada as only one who grew up in several small towns could. With its gentle humour, brilliant sentences, and captivating storytelling, this, to me, is a supremely Canadian tale.

This fine novel tells the story of three generations of the Gursky family and cuts a broad swath through the country’s history and geography. Any story that includes a plane crash, rum-running, and the Franklin Expedition puts a check mark in the “Canadian” box.

Few stories capture the distinctly Canadian humour, tone, and sensibility as well as Anne of Green Gables. While the musical may now be more popular than the book, it’s well worth revisiting the L.M. Montgomery’s classic for a few laughs, a few tears and a dollop of national pride.

If you want to read a hilarious novel that captures the Canadian role in the Great War through the eyes of an oblivious horse-faced farm boy from Eastern Ontario (and who doesn’t?), I give you Three Cheers for Me. Written by the three-time Leacock Medal winning Donald Jack, this is a comic masterpiece, and oh so Canadian.

Canadian writers have played a profound role in shaping how we view our own country. The history of Canadian literature is a critical strand running through the history of Canada. Why not read about some wonderful Canadian storytellers in a fantastic book by Douglas Gibson, an editor and publisher who has worked with some of Canada’s most influential writers including Robertson Davies, Alice Munro, and W.O. Mitchell? You’ll thank me.

Terry Fallis is a Canadian author and two-time winner of the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, winning in 2008 for his debut novel, The Best Laid Plans, and in 2015 for No Relation. To date, all five of his published books have been shortlisted for the award.

COMMENTARY

You can imagine how thrilled I am to be in this company. I have strong links with all of the other four authors.

I edited many ROBERTSON DAVIES books, starting with World of Wonders, the third in the trilogy started by Fifth Business. It is, of course, a superb book, and features in my show about CANADA’S GREATEST STORYTELLERS.

I knew MORDECAI RICHLER well, although I never edited his work. He, too, features in my new STORYTELLERS show, where he and I feud as his weary letters begin “Gibson, Gibson”. Much of the excellent Solomon Gursky book is set in Magog, around the corner from my beloved North Hatley in the Eastern Townships.

Like every Canadian publisher, I published several of LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY’S books, including Anne of Green Gables,( with an “E”). I talk about her in the STORYTELLERS show, noting that it was her Emily of New Moon that set young Alice Munro off on a writing career.

DONALD JACK is a great hidden comic genius. He brought out Three Cheers For Me in 1962, and its Wodehousian treatment of Bartholomew Bandy’s adventures among the horrors of Flanders Fields raised many eyebrows. When he brought me a second volume in 1972 ( entitled That’s Me In The Middle), I reshuffled the new book and Three Cheers For Me, so that they became part of a continuing series. Don generously signed the 1972 edition of Three Cheers For Me with the words “For the originator of The Bandy Papers, Douglas Gibson”, so you can imagine how pleased I was to find him included here by Terry.

As for DOUGLAS GIBSON, words fail. But if anyone reading this has not yet read Stories About Storytellers, I hope you’ll see if you agree with Terry’s generous assessment.

First, of course, an affectionate word about AVIE BENNETT, who passed away four days ago. Jane and I were in Vancouver when the Toronto Star tracked me down for a phone interview about Avie in Stanley Park. It was strangely appropriate for a man who took the M&S description, “The Canadian Publishers”, so seriously.

I was glad that The Star devoted a front-page story to Avie’s life and death. My own recollections of working daily with him as the Publisher of McClelland & Stewart when he was the Chairman , from 1988 till 2000, are vivid and proud. The Star story ended with my recollection of my May 23 show at the Lieutenant Governor’s Chambers in Queen’s Park. I had begun by thanking everyone for coming, recognising my 10 year-old nephew Alistair (who leapt to his feet with unrestrained enthusiasm), and then noting the presence of 89-year old Avie, who was there on a walker , with the help of his friend Bill Ross. It had taken him a great deal of trouble and determination to come to my show, to support me, and I spoke briefly about his role in supporting Canadian writers.

Without prompting, the audience burst into warm applause. Avie was delighted.

He died ten days later, after this final triumphant public appearance.

OPTION ONE: The full show, with an Intermission when we reach 1967. This is the show I have given in Ottawa on April 29, and (in more polished form) at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver on May 31. This is also the form chosen by a number of Literary Festivals across the country for the next few months.

The next such event, running almost two hours, including the Intermission, will be on the roof of Ontario, where so many rivers start, at FLESHERTON on JUNE 9, at 7pm. Tickets are still available. Contact museum@greyhighlands for details about the show in the Kineplex.

OPTION TWO: A condensed 50-minute version of the show, concentrating on the modern era, from 1967 to the present. This is the version that I gave at The Lieutenant Governor’s Queen’s Park Chambers. Susan Swan the novelist was in the audience, and kindly called it ” a witty historical medley of Canadian writerly talent…How fortunate Canada is that you are doing your show across the country. If only there were more Doug Gibsons going out in the world to tell it about our great literary tradition, our wonderful history of writers and writing.”

OPTION THREE: The first 100 Years, from 1867 to 1967. This version, running one hour, has already been chosen by some Ontario groups. In every case, of course, I deal with our major writers in English and in French, and the show is enlivened by bursts of Canadian music, and the work of other Canadian artists from the time. And always, of course, I speak about the author against the background caricature by the brilliant Anthony Jenkins.

I’m still building a National Tour. Please let any interested group (Library/Bookstore/Museum/ Community) know about the shows we can bring to them. Contact me at doug1929@rogers.com

At last, I’m able to give some news about my new 2017 show “CANADA’S GREATEST STORYTELLERS/ LES GRANDS RACONTEURS CANADIENS 1867–2017”

We held an Open Dress Rehearsal for it at our local Toronto Library, at Deer Park, on Saturday April 22. About 30 brave people showed up, and gave very useful comments. To incorporate them, Jane and I have amended the very comprehensive show — with lots of music, and scores of fine Canadian works of art over the full 150 years . I’m happy to report that people in the audience stayed for the whole show, which runs for almost two hours, including the 10-minute Intermission, which comes when we arrive at 1967!

Nobody lobbed any over-ripe fruit, or shouted abuse. One audience member, impressed by my inclusion of our greatest novelists in French, came up and made my day by congratulating me en Francais!

The volleys of tomatoes may come in OTTAWA this SATURDAY , APRIL 29, when we launch the show at The Ottawa Book Festival. To be precise, the Launch is at 4.00 p.m., not in The National Library (as was originally planned) but in CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL, ON SPARKS STREET. ( The grand setting seems to have been always in the cards: during the show Leonard Cohen sings “Hallelujah” . My friend Charles Gordon, mindful of my acrobatic disaster in London’s Canada House, has admonished me “Don’t fall off the altar!”)

If you live near Ottawa , or have friends who do, please come along. We’re hoping for a full house, and much laughter.

THEN , TORONTO.

First, on MONDAY , MAY 8, there will be a Private Show at the ARTS AND LETTERS CLUB, built around the Dinner that begins at 6.15. If you have friends who are members, now’s your chance.

Then on Tuesday 23, The Lieutenant Governor,Elizabeth Dowdeswell , will be holding a Toronto Launch in her OFFICIAL CHAMBERS for the new show. Details are still being worked out. Please let me know if you’d like to be invited to that afternoon/evening event.

Then VANCOUVER.

On WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, I’ll be giving the show at THE S.F.U. HARBOUR CENTRE DOWNTOWN, starting at 7.00pm. Please tell your Vancouver friends.

Then, as word spreads about this remarkable “show in a box” that Jane and I hope to take to every community that’s interested, we’ll be on our travels.
Please think about any organisation or group that might like to invite us, and suggest it to them.

A new stage performance by DOUGLAS GIBSON, announced here first, to my faithful blog friends!

From coast to coast to coast (Ungava Bay, aboard an Adventure Canada cruise ship!) former publisher Douglas Gibson has given over 160 performances of the dramatized versions of his first two books. Against the backdrop of the brilliant author caricatures by Anthony Jenkins (of Alice Munro, Robertson Davies, Pierre Trudeau, and many others), he has told behind-the-scenes stories about the men and women he got to know well.

Internationally, he has taken his show celebrating Canadian authors to London (where he fell off the Canada House stage, a West-End triumph) to Beijing, to Mexico, and beyond.

Now he has created a new show – again with the help of Anthony Jenkins – to celebrate our greatest storytellers since Confederation….English, French, and Indigenous. People in many Canadian communities may think that staging the show is a fine way to celebrate our Sesquicentennial.

The power-point show follows our history decade by decade. Each decade begins with a burst of Canadian music from the time. On screen we see a familiar photo of the decade (“Ah, yes,that was the time of the Klondike Gold Rush”), and then several iconic pieces of Canadian art, by people like Cornelius Krieghoff, or Lawren Harris, or Mary Pratt. Then the burst of music stops, and the caricature of the chosen author appears, and fascinating (boiling his moccasins?) stories about the chosen author and his or her best book are excitingly told (in front of a train?)

Usually, in each decade only one novelist in French and one in English will be chosen. This means that the show will be controversial (“How could you leave out X from the 1980s?”), but Doug Gibson will be happy to provoke spirited debate about our best authors. And while the show will be in English, everything on the screen, such as book titles and the names of the translation (“Kamouraska and Kamouraska, you say?”) will be bilingual. We all may learn more about our greatest authors, including the epic Haida storyteller, Skaay.

To learn more about booking the show,which will run from May-December 2017, please consult www.douglasgibsonbooks.com, or contact Jane Gibson at jane1929@rogers.com ,or phone 416 489 1929.

I’d like to recommend a fine new book, one that should appeal to anyone who enjoys this blog. The book is THE PROMISE OF CANADA by Charlotte Gray. The sub-title ties it very clearly to our 1867-2017 Sesquicentennial. “150 Years — People And Ideas That Have Shaped Our Country”.

You may already know the book, because it has been widely and enthusiastically reviewed, and has become a best-seller, getting a head start on the many Sesquicentennial books that will mark 2017. That flying start reflects well on its publisher . It’s brought out by Phyllis Bruce Editions at Simon & Schuster Canada, another example of the success that thoughtful editorial imprints can bring to a publishing world that often seems overly obsessed with shallow marketing of shallow books. It also reflects the respect that readers and reviewers have for Charlotte Gray, the author of nine previous books.

I met Charlotte soon after she came to Canada in 1979. She had known my brother Peter in Britain, and he had told her to look up his big brother, who ran Macmillan’s publishing programme in Toronto, and might have useful advice for a young writer newly arrived in mysterious Canada. I remember our chat, where I advised her to write for Bob Fulford’s “Saturday Night”, and encouraged her in a general way. I wish I could claim that she owes her success to me…and I wish even more fervently that I had been smart enough to sign her up for the books that she was soon producing with great success.

As an immigrant to Canada Charlotte soon became aware of what a remarkable place we’ve inherited. One of her early books (Sisters in the Wilderness: The Lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill) hints at her own experience as an English newcomer. Over time, as her knowledge grew, with fascinating months in Dawson City enlivening her Gold Diggers: Striking it Rich in the Klondike, she became a Canadian enthusiast, as every page of the new book shows.

A personal note: the very first page of The Promise of Canada, the end-papers, shows the start of the 1967 canoe race in the wake of the voyageurs, east from Alberta’s Rocky Mountain House all the way to the finish line at Expo in Montreal. Paddling in the stern of the Manitoba canoe is none other than Don Starkell. That’s my friend Don , the author of both Paddle To The Amazon and then Paddle To The Arctic.

As you’d expect, Don’s Manitoba crew won the race, arriving in Montreal 104 days later, amidst cheers and sirens and fireworks. But there is a sad footnote, recorded in Paddle To The Amazon. Don had a sales job in Winnipeg, and knew that he would need time off to paddle across the country in this national celebration. In his words:

“I asked for a leave of absence, and it was flatly denied.

“Why?” I remember asking my supervisor.

“We just can’t do that,” he said, and that was that.”

So Don quit his job , although money was tight. Oh yes, the name of his employer, so uninterested in this piece of unfolding Canadian history that it wouldn’t give a salesman a leave of absence to take part in it? The Canadian Pacific Railway.

And Saskatoon berries? My last blog attracted some attention by talking about the role of Saskatoon berries in the making of pemmican, the well-preserved, light, portable, food that fuelled the fur trade. What many people don’t realise is that the Saskatoon berry ( formally Amelanchier alnifolia,) includes 15 related species, and is found right across Canada. I once won an argument with a dismissive Albertan at a publishing event in Toronto, where “you don’t have any saskatoon berries ” by nipping out and picking a few serviceberries on Bloor Street. The party-goers enjoyed them when I returned, even the surprised Albertan.

I’ve found them , and eaten them, in every province. Sometimes they’re “serviceberries”. Sometimes they’re “June-berries” in tribute to their early arrival. In his superb book about Nature in Nova Scotia, Dancing on the Shore, Harold Horwood waxes indignantly lyrical about them:

“How much better is the Newfoundland name chuckly pear! Serviceberry indeed! And how much uglier the American name, shadbush! But whatever you call them, their blooming is a high point of the year. At Annapolis there are several species, some of them small shrubs, others growing into trees twenty-five feet tall. When they bloom in mid-May the woods on every side are dressed in great veils of pink and white, for though all the flowers are white, some species have pink sepals, and leaves that are red when they first unfold. The great drift of blossoms fill every dark space along the edges of the woods. I have never seen any forest anywhere more beautiful with bloom than the Annapolis woodlands during the brief flowering of the chuckly pears.

“Later, the children will gather the fruit, almost live on it while it is at its peak, and perhaps I’ll even turn a gallon or so of the purple berries into wine….”

It’s notable that the very first English-speaking explorer of the Prairies noted the crunchy Saskatoon berry with approval. In June, 1690 Henry Kelsey left York Factory and headed West with some indigenous traders. In the words of The Canadian Encyclopedia, he “wintered at The Pas, Manitoba, before striking out on foot across the prairie, possibly as far as the Red Deer River.”

Incredibly, Kelsey wrote a large part of his report to his Hudson Bay Company superiors IN VERSE. Here he is in, we think, Eastern Saskatchewan:

” So far I have spoken concerning of the spoil

And now will accot. (give an account ) of that same Countrye soile

Which hither part is very thick of wood

Affords small nuts with little cherryes very good…”

And there you have it, a literary discovery! The very first review of the eating delights of the Saskatoon berry, from 1691. You read it here first.